Tuesday, March 04, 2014

Copper M&A is heating up and we have the same familiar faces bidding for the best assets in the world. China is moving forward with its state-level strategy to secure supply of strategic commodities. You can follow their footsteps everywhere in Copper, Gold and Lithium.

"Is this rumour too good to be true for the proud people of Argentina? Can Argentina ever make its come back in mining? On the one hand we have still the very strong perception of the high political risk and on another hand we have reports from the ground about the changing environment in the country:

"Meanwhile, when asked by an analyst to comment on the future of the Navidad project, PanAm CEO Geoff Burns said he sees signs of noted improvement “in our operating environment and in the attractiveness of making investments” in Argentina.

“There was a new chief of cabinet installed…now a couple of months ago,” he observed. “And he certainly seems to be driving a more business-friendly environment, or at least, pushing for a more business-friendly environment.”

“I was down there [in Argentina] just a couple of weeks ago, and I would say I am more optimistic than I have been in the last couple of years about the future of Argentina and the future of mining investment in Argentina,” Burns advised."

The reports provided on the links below are suggesting that this particular move by Barrick Gold could not be so far fetched: company has confirmed that it is working on strategic partnerships on Pascua Lama and that partners from China are of a particular interest for the company. Argentinean government has even organised negotiations with Chile in order to bring Pascua Lama project back to life. We will not rush ahead to the conclusions and will wait for the official confirmations about these talks, but the trend is quite apparent for the industry insiders and we had discussed it before.

"Word on the Southern Cone jungledrums is that Chinese mining bigboy Citic is in negotiations to partner Barrick (ABX) on its troubled Pascua Lama gold project on the Chile/Argentina border. The source, who to the amazement of all readers prefers to remain anonymous, says that ABX will retain operator status but the negotiations are now more about the size of percentage to flip out to Citic than whether or not there's a deal to be done. This news comes after Chile's parliament recently sided with ABX on whether it needed to completely re-start the environmental permitting process from scratch or not, a decision that's expected to influence the decision of the key EIA committee on Pascua Lama, who opened their case investigation yesterday. Assuming ABX doesn't need to start the permitting process from scratch, the Chinese cash will flow. So now you know as much as I do. Decent source, by the way."

In September, McEwen Mining announced an updated PEA for the Los Azules Copper project. The results from the PEA demonstrate that Los Azules has the potential to become one of the largest, lowest cost copper mines in the world. In addition, there remains excellent exploration potential to further expand the size of the existing mineral resource. Highlights from the PEA are shown below:

Annual copper production during years 1-5 to average 258,000 tonnes (568 million lbs), which would have placed it in the top 3%1 of copper mines in the world during 2012. Life of mine annual copper production to average 171,000 tonnes (377 million lbs) over 35 years.

Indicated resource of 5.4 billion pounds of copper (grading 0.63% Cu) and 0.8 million ounces of gold (389 million tonnes with a cut-off grade of 0.35% Cu) and Inferred resource of 14.3 billion pounds of copper (grading 0.46%) and 2.6 million ounces of gold (1,397 million tonnes with a cut-off grade of 0.35% Cu).

Initial capital costs to construct the mine and process plant have been estimated at $3.9 billionwith a payback on a pre-tax basis has been estimated at 3.8 years at $3.00/lb copper and$1,300/oz gold.

1 Based on internal market data.

The PEA is preliminary in nature and includes inferred mineral resources that are considered too speculative geologically to have the economic considerations applied to them that would enable them to be categorized as mineral reserves, and there is no certainty that the PEA will be realized.

The PEA has been filed under the Company's profile on SEDAR (www.sedar.com) pursuant to the requirements of Canadian National Instrument 43-101 and is also available on the Company's website - www.mcewenmining.com."

Glencore Xstrata Plc (GLEN) Chief Executive Officer Ivan Glasenberg said the world’s fourth-biggest mining company remains in talks with a Chinese bidder for an asset that’s been valued at more than $5 billion.

“There’s no roadblock in the talks,” the 57-year-old billionaire said in a phone interview in London, referring to a copper mine in Peru that Glencore put up for sale last year. “We are in discussions with a potential buyer and if we can get the right price we will go ahead and sell it.”

A group led by China Minmetals Corp. is nearing an agreement to purchase Las Bambas for more than $5 billion, people with knowledge of the matter said last month. Proceeds from the sale may be returned to shareholders, Chief Financial Officer Steve Kalmin told reporters in September. Glencore today reported pro-forma adjusted net income of $4.58 billion.

“We continue to think the company could receive a good price for this asset,” Paul Gait, a mining analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein, wrote in a report. “We see short-term upside to the stock from the potential for Glencore to report a successful sale of this asset. We were, however, slightly disappointed this was not announced today.”

Glencore rose for the first time in nine days in London trading, advancing as much as 3.5 percent, and gained 2.4 percent to 334.20 pence at 9:27 a.m. The FTSE 350 Mining Index was 0.9 percent higher.

‘No Secret’

Las Bambas is “a good asset, we still feel very comfortable with the asset,” Glasenberg said. “There is a leading bidder, the Chinese, that’s no secret, so we are continuing to have discussions with them.”

Glencore is selling the Las Bambas mine as part of an agreement to win Chinese regulatory authorization for its $29 billion takeover of Xstrata Plc last year.

The leading Chinese group includes Citic Metal Co., a unit of state-controlled conglomerate Citic Group Corp., and China Reform Holding Corp., an investment company backed by the country’s state assets regulator, the people said.

“We expect at least a portion of what should be about $5 billion of proceeds from a Las Bambas sale to be returned to shareholders via a special dividend,” Chris LaFemina, an analyst at Jefferies LLC, wrote in a report.

About $3 billion has been spent on the project so far. It is estimated to cost about $5.9 billion to complete, Glencore’s Kalmin said in September.

BMO Capital Markets Ltd. and Credit Suisse Group AG are advising Glencore on the sale. Bank of America Corp., Citigroup Inc. and Deutsche Bank AG are working with the Minmetals-led group, according to the people.

The company is also in talks with Rio Tinto Group for a possible coal mining venture in Australia’s Hunter Valley coal region, Glasenberg said today. It remains in negotiations with Brazil’s Vale SA (VALE) on combining nickel operations inCanada’s Sudbury basin, he said.

Peter Grauer, the chairman of Bloomberg LP, the parent of Bloomberg News, is a non-executive director of Glencore Xstrata.

Please Note our Legal Disclaimer on the Blog, including, but Not limited to:

There are NO Qualified Persons among the authors of this blog as it is defined by NI 43-101, we were NOT able to verify and check any provided information in the articles, news releases or on the links embedded on this blog; you must NOT rely in any sense on any of this information in order to make any resource or value calculation, or attribute any particular value or Price Target to any discussed securities.

We Do Not own any content in the third parties' articles, news releases, videos or on the links embedded on this blog; any opinions - including, but not limited to the resource estimations, valuations, target prices and particular recommendations on any securities expressed there - are subject to the disclosure provided by those third parties and are NOT verified, approved or endorsed by the authors of this blog in any way.

Please, do not forget, that we own stocks we are writing about and have position in these companies. We are not providing any investment advice on this blog and there is no solicitation to buy or sell any particular company.

About Me

Legal Disclaimer

Small Print

"Past performance is not a guarantee of future returns."

Bernard Madoff.

All opinions expressed on this Blog are personal opinions of its authors, they do not represent any official position of any companies they can be involved with now, have been involved in the past or will be involved in the future. We have chosen our anonymity as the way to protect our freedom of thinking.

There are NO Qualified Persons among the authors of this blog as it is defined by NI 43-101, we were NOT able to verify and check any provided information in the articles, news releases or on the links embedded on this blog; you must NOT rely in any sense on any of this information in order to make any resource or value calculation, or attribute any particular value or Price Target to any discussed securities.

We Do Not own any content in the third parties' articles, news releases, videos or on the links embedded on this blog; any opinions - including, but not limited to the resource estimations, valuations, target prices and particular recommendations on any securities expressed there - are subject to the disclosure provided by those third parties and are NOT verified, approved or endorsed by the authors of this blog in any way.

There is No intent of any copyright infringement in any way from the authors of this blog, we are relying on the Creative Commons in our work and in case if any owners of any content provided on this blog would like us NOT to use it, please indicate so in comments immediately.

Statements in articles on this blog other than purely historical information, historical estimates should not be relied upon, including statements relating to the companies' future plans and objectives or expected results, are forward-looking statements. News releases contain certain "Forward-Looking Statements" within the meaning of Section 21E of the United States Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. Forward-looking statements are based on numerous assumptions and are subject to all of the risks and uncertainties inherent in the companies' business, including risks inherent in resource exploration and development. As a result, actual results may vary materially from those described in the forward-looking statements.

This site does not constitute investment, legal, tax or other advice, nor is anything on this site a recommendation to invest in any security, or any other instrument, nor is this site to be relied upon when making investment or other decisions.

No Liability: No representation, warranty or undertaking, express or implied, is made by this Blog, its associated companies or any other person as to the reliability, accuracy or completeness of this site. In no event will authors or any of their associated companies or any of their partners, directors or other employees be liable to any person for any direct, indirect, special or consequential losses or damages of any kind arising out of any use of this site or in reliance on it from time to time, including without limitation, any loss of profit, business interruption, loss of programs or data on your equipment or otherwise.

SRSrocco reports on further deterioration of the COMEX Gold inventories available for deliveries. You can guess who is taking now a...

Total Pageviews

Dedicated to all those brave men who have been fighting the bear market in 2000 and buying the dips without understanding that they were looking straight into the abyss. Do not trust your money in anybody, for you are the one who is going to be rich or poor, not those that are advising you: always do your DD. Disclosure: We are putting our money where our mouth is.